2023.01.25 TC MTG AGENDA & MINUTES

January 23, 2023 By
Print 🖨 PDF 📄

Town of Leeds

Agenda

Town of Leeds Town Council

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

PUBLIC NOTICE is hereby given that the Town of Leeds Town Council will hold a PUBLIC MEETING on Wednesday, January 25, 2023, at 7:00 pm. The Town Council will meet in the Leeds Town Hall located at 218 N Main, Leeds, Utah.

Regular Meeting 7:00pm

  1. Call to Order/Roll Call
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance
  4. Declaration of Abstentions or Conflicts
  5. Consent Agenda:

       a.  Tonight’s Agenda

        b.   Meeting Minutes of ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­January 11, 2023

      5.   Citizen Comments: No action may be taken on a matter raised under this agenda item. (Three minutes per person).

6.    Announcements:

                        a. Dixie Regional Transportation Expo, Tuesday Feb. 7th, 10am-6pm in the Dixie Center

7.    Public Hearings: None

       8.     Action Items:

                                a. Discussion possible action regarding 2024 Washington County Election

9. Discussion Items:

                  a. Discussion regarding Fraud Risk assessment

                        b. Review of purchasing policy

10. Citizen Comments: No action may be taken on a matter raised under this agenda item. (Three minutes per person).

11. Staff Reports:

12. Closed Meeting- A Closed Meeting may be held for any item identified under Utah Code section 52-4-205.

13. Adjournment

                        The Town of Leeds will make reasonable accommodations for persons needing assistance to participate in this public meeting.  Persons requesting                       assistance are asked to call the Leeds Town Hall at 879-2447 at least 24 hours prior to the meeting.             

                        The Town of Leeds is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

                        Certificate of Posting;

The undersigned Clerk/Recorder does hereby certify that the above notice was posted ­­­ January 23  , 2022 atthese public places being at Leeds Town Hall, Leeds Post Office, the Utah Public Meeting Notice website http://pmn.utah.gov, and the Town of Leeds website www.leedstown.org.

_____________________________________________

Aseneth Steed, Clerk/Recorder

Town of Leeds

Town Council Meeting for

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Regular Meeting 7:02 PM

1.Call to Order/Roll Call:

ROLL CALL:

Present

Absent

MAYOR: BILL HOSTER

X

COUNCILMEMBER: DANIELLE STIRLING

X

COUNCILMEMBER: RON CUNDICK

X

COUNCILMEMBER: STEPHEN WILSON

X

COUNCILMEMBER: KOHL FURLEY

X

Town Planner, Scott Messel Absent

Invocation: Councilmember

Pledge of Allegiance: Councilmember Stirling

Declaration of Abstentions or Conflicts: None

Approval of Consent Agenda and Minutes Tonight’s Agenda

Councilmember Stirling moved to approve tonight’s agenda of January 25, 2023, and the Town Council Minutes of January 11, 2023, Second by Councilmember Wilson. Motion passed in a Roll Call Vote.

ROLL CALL VOTE:

Yea

Nay

Abstain

Absent

MAYOR: Bill HOSTER

X

COUNCILMEMBER: DANIELLE STIRLING

X

COUNCILMEMBER: RON CUNDICK

X

COUNCILMEMBER: STEPHEN WILSON

X

COUNCILMEMBER: KOHL FURLEY

X

Citizen Comments: None

Announcements:

Dixie Regional Transportation Expo, Tuesday Feb. 7th at 10:00am to 6:00pm in the Dixie Center

7. Public Hearings: None

8. Action Items:

Possible action regarding 2024 Washington County Election.

Mayor Hoster: I’ll preface this. Councilman Stirling has also been in dialogue with some of the groups in the area with regard to concerns over the election’s integrity. There is question about the machines that are used to count the ballots so let me let me preface all of this. The county who we have contracted with in the past to run our town elections, we do have an election coming up this year. We typically contract with them for a fee of how many ballots would be processed. They submit to us a quote that shoots a little bit high, but it should be this or less. Now, that process falls under state law and statute wherein in the state of Utah, we do mail in ballots, and those ballots can be received, mailed in dropped off, or you can physically go in and vote. All of those are processed through the tally machines that are contracted with County, Washington county in the state of Utah. These groups have vocalized their distrust of these systems and asked that we consider not doing that. We pushed back and said that, considering the laws of the state of Utah, for the Town of Leeds to conduct our own election would be an incredible burden legally to the town as much as financially and with time. I’ve opted to speak with the county about the process and they’ve provided a quote to proceed forward with our contract, as we have in the past for conducting our election through ballots with the County. Council this is an action item for us to proceed forward if we wish is to enter into that agreement with Washington County as our ballot processing partner.

Councilmember Wilson: So, is there any concern with having those funds available that time?

Mayor: We have these funds budgeted in? This is actually less than it was last year. I think last year, we had a budget of 2,400. And they’re estimating this to be high.

Councilmember Stirling: In my dialogue with the two individuals that have concern over the validity of ballots being counted by The GES machines, I explained to them that I didn’t have any problem with using both. So, after that GES machine is used, then we go ahead and hand count them, but I didn’t necessarily just want to go only two hand counting.

Mayor: It would actually be the city council.

Councilmember Wilson moved to approve. Second by Councilmember Stirling. Motion passed in a Roll Call Vote.

ROLL CALL VOTE:

Yea

Nay

Abstain

Absent

MAYOR: Bill HOSTER

X

COUNCILMEMBER: DANIELLE STIRLING

X

COUNCILMEMBER: RON CUNDICK

X

COUNCILMEMBER: STEPHEN WILSON

X

COUNCILMEMBER: KOHL FURLEY

X

Discussion Items:

Discussion regarding Fraud Risk Assessment

Mayor: The town receives frequent audits. And those audits are assessed different components of daily activities. In the past, there were four findings for the Town was given notice to assess. One of them was Council discussion on our fraud risk assessment report. We’ve received an outline of how to proceed with those and are making the corrections. It was a this is pretty important. I think it’s pretty well known and maybe not. But I think it was the city of Eagle Mountain that lost about $6 million in fraud that had occurred to them, I think just last year. And so, they’re going to highlight this a lot. The fraud teams are getting really good at tricking people into providing them with vulnerable information. So, this fraud risk assessment should be conducted by the Town Council.

Councilmember Wilson: So, was this part of the audit that just took place and this came up?

Mayor: Yes

Wilson: Is there a deadline on this?

Town Clerk: Yes, The report must be posted by the 31st. This is an annual report that has to be uploaded to the state every year.

Review of Leeds Town purchasing policy

Mayor: My understanding is that was this was another component of the audit that we were not as diligent on as we could be, which requires a purchase order for every financial transaction by the town. Clerk, do you have anything to add to that?

Clerk: The form in your folder is the adopted form that Antonio uses. The auditor wanted it on the record, that it was addressed in the administrative meeting, The policies are that every purchase has to be accompanied with a purchase order, and that all the employees and the administration are aware of this policy.

Town discussion concluded the following changes:

  1. The date of the purchase order should be the PO number using the date format YYMMDD.
  2. Omit “approved in advance by department head.” And replace “does not exceed purchase authority $500” written there?
  3. PO will be signed at the time the checks are.

Citizen Comments:

Ken Hadley offered to help with the preparations for Leeds Town booth at the Washington County Fair.

Bill McLaughlin: Regarding the voting? You have to be through a course at the state to get certified as a Poll Judge. So, if you wanted someone to recount ballots by hand, you have to go through the state. I’m sure Washington County must get their people certified.

Staff Reports:

Mayor: I attended DTAC this last week. Apparently, the overpass for I-15 is going to move forward for Main Street in Washington, they do have a significant amount of money that’s going toward that with sound barrier walls, which we’ve had some people from Leeds ask if we can get some in here. It’s not a Leeds town issue. So, I contacted DOT to find out where they can submit those requests and posted that on social media for all the people asking about it. We used to work with Tracy Munson at DTAC, but he’s been promoted. And he’s now a director in the southwest division. However, he still facilitating our interactions with the Department of Transportation and Main Street. And the engineering component of that is at a standstill for the fact that the department transportation has asked for a full floodplain study of the town of Leeds before proceeding with any rectification of the of the flood remedies. And so we’ve worked with Karl Rasmussen, that was submitted last week. And upon review, the department transportation identified many gaps that they wanted filled in. And so I have another meeting with Karl when I get back in town. We can review that and see what we can do to identify ways to proceed forward with the remedies on Main street flooding project. Hopefully I’ll have more to report on in two weeks.

For the fire department, we did identify that they have some challenges with regard to their staffing schedules of which was tabled. But it’s anticipated that the fire department wishes to move now to 48–96-hour shifts, which they’ve stated will improve retention. There has been concerns about fatigue associated with it. So Multiple studies have been reviewed on behalf of the fire department and on behalf of the board for that. And also, there’s legislation being pitched right now during this legislative session for the Hurricane Valley Fire Services District to become a class two classification which receives EMS funding. They’re not really that. But they’re trying to get legislation passed and allows them to have that because they do have the state parks in place, which would enable them to essentially get the revenue necessary to accommodate the budget that was just passed. Otherwise, they’re going to have to find other ways to either make that budget or make some cuts. That’s the end of my staff report. And if there’s nothing else motion to close,

Adjournment: 7:31pm

Approved this eighth day of February 2023.

_______________________________

Bill Hoster, Mayor

ATTEST:

_________________________________

Aseneth Steed, Clerk/Recorder